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RECIDIVISM (from Fr. recidiver, to re...
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See also:RECIDIVISM (from Fr. recidiver, to relapse and fall again into the same See also:fault, or repeat the same offence as one committed before) , a See also:modern expression for " habitual See also:crime." The recidivist is now universally known to exist in all civilized countries as one who has adopted wrong-doing and See also:law-breaking as a profession. His persistency is ceaseless and inextinguishable by the See also:ordinary methods of combating crime. Penal See also:justice as generally exercised is unavailing, and is little better than an automatic See also:machine which draws in a vast number within its wheels and casts them out again practically unchanged in See also:character to qualify again for the ineffective treatment. This dangerous contingent is for ever on the move, into See also:prison and out of it and in again; a large proportion of it, the criminal residuum, the very essence of the criminality of a See also:country, resists all processes devised for its regeneration and cure. Nothing will mend it; neither severity nor kindness, neither the most irksome restraints nor the philanthropic methods of moral and educational persuasion. This failure has encouraged some ardent reformers to recommend the See also:system of indefinite imprisonment or the indeterminate See also:sentence, by which the enemy once caught is kept perpetually or for a lengthy See also:period, and thus rendered innocuous. Habitual offenders, it is argued, should be detained as hostages until they are willing to See also:lay down their arms and consent to make no further See also:attempt to attack or injure society. The theory is See also:sound and has been adopted in See also:part in several countries, especially in the See also:United States. It was not until 1909 that the system of preventive detention was put into operation in the United See also:Kingdom, when, by the Prevention of Crime See also:Act 1908, See also:power was given to the courts to pass on habitual criminals a sentence of preventive detentionin addition to one of penal See also:servitude. This further period may range within limits of from five to ten years, according to the discretion of the See also:court. The See also:English system is hardly more than tentative at See also:present; the machinery is admittedly capable of improvement. The See also:charge of being an habitual criminal has to be inserted in the See also:indictment on which the offender is to be tried, and this cannot be done without the consent of the director of public prosecutions and after certain See also:notice has been given to the officer of the court trying the prisoner and to the offender himself. The decision to charge a prisoner with being an habitual criminal has hitherto rested on the See also:local See also:police authorities, and it has been See also:felt that a more even and a more See also:general application of such a drastic method of treatment would result if the decision were transferred to one authority, and some such reform was foreshadowed by the See also:Home Secretary in a speech in the See also:House of See also:Commons on prison reform on the loth of See also:July 1910. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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